52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 2 "Favorite Photo"

This week is easy. I use my favorite genealogy photo as my Mastodon banner.

I came across this photo several years ago when I was browsing through a copy of a book called "Bon Homme County [South Dakota] History" (Hoover Herbert T, Carol Goss Hoover, Dottee Blaha, and Bon Homme County Historical Society. 1994. Bon Homme County History. Tyndall SD, Vermillion SD: Bon Homme County Historical Society ; H.T. Hoover.)

I knew I had ancestors in that county and I was hoping to find a mention of them. I found something even better--a photo of them!

The caption said something like "William Ogden visiting his grandparents John and Isabella Gibbon outside their sod house near Scotland, SD." (I don't have a copy of the exact wording, but that's pretty close.) I thought "Hey! I know those people!" A genealogy happy dance ensued.

William Fredrick Ogden (1871-1951) was my mom's paternal grandfather. (My mapapa using my shorthand notation. See the "Ma and Pa" tab on this blog.) He is visiting his maternal grandparents (my 3xgreat-grandparents) John Gibbon (1803-1899) and Isabella Davidson (1811-1890). These are my mapapamapa and mapapamasma. The "s" in there is because Isabella was John's second wife--a step-mother to my 2xgreat-grandmother Hannah Gibbon (1837-1927), who married James Robert Ogden (1836-1910).

My Gibbon line were originally from Aberdeenshire in Scotland. They went first to Ontario, Canada in 1835. Some time in the 1870s they made their way south to the Dakota Territory where they settled in Bon Homme County outside of the town of--wait for it--Scotland. 

The quality of the photo is not very good, but who cares? I have a photo of my ancestors from around 1880 and that is truly wonderful.

 

NE/SD Family History Road Trip (part 4)

Day 6, Thursday, Oct. 24

Thursday we headed east for Geddes, SD passing through Yankton and Bon Homme County on our way there. Our first stop was the cemetery. It did not take us long to find the graves of another set of great-grandparents, William and Mary (Herren) Ogden. We also found the graves of Mary’s parents, my great-great-grandparents John and Julia (Adelbush) Herren.

After the cemetery, we headed out to find the farms of my ancestors in Charles Mix County. I had located the descriptions of the farms and maps of their locations at the General Land Office website of the Bureau of Land Management. I was able to use Google Maps to find them and figure out how to get there. The first one was a doozy. It was the farm of John Frederick Herren, who owned the northwest quarter of section 29 and the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of section 30 in Jackson Township. I had expected we’d be on some unpaved back roads, but the “Minimal Maintenance” sign we passed made me question the wisdom of our quest. It was worth the effort though--his land was high on a bluff from which you can see the Missouri River to the south. Very picturesque. He farmed there from about 1895 to 1910. It was his second farm in SD, the first being somewhere in Union County.

John Herren's farm in Jackson Twp., Charles Mix Co., SD

The next two farms were easier to find. James Robert Ogden’s was northeast of Geddes in Moore Township, as was his son’s William Ogden’s. JR farmed there from about 1882 to 1895, when he headed farther west to Rapid City, where he and his wife are buried. William was on his farm from sometime in the late 1890s to between 1906 and 1910.

James Robert Ogden's farm in Moore Twp., Charles Mix Co., SD

William F. Ogden's farm in Moore Twp., Charles Mix Co., SD

After visiting all of the sites in Charles Mix County, it was on to Mitchell, SD for the night. We of course had to visit the Corn Palace. There is not much else to see or do in Mitchell. 

Heading back to our hotel room after a dip in the indoor swimming pool, we met a group of pheasant hunters who like us were from the Chicago suburbs, Frankfort, Bourbonnais and a third one that I cannot recall. 

(to be continued)

NE/SD Family History Road Trip (part 3)

Day 5, Wednesday, Oct. 23

Before leaving O'Neill, we stopped off at the quilt store so I could drop off the family history of our parents’ family that I had written in 2006 for my dad’s 80th birthday. My cousin Julie wasn't there yet, so I left it with one of her employees and my wife bought a pattern for a patchwork quilt skirt for our granddaughter. Then it was on to Creighton, NE.

We were early in arriving in Creighton so we drove around a little (very little since it’s so small) and saw the Catholic church, which is a newer construction than the building where my grandparents were baptized and married and where their kids (except for my dad) were baptized.

We went to the café and Pat arrived with her 86-year-old aunt, Flora Jean, who was married to my dad’s first cousin, Lawrence Mattern. Pat is my second cousin through one of my dad’s other Mattern cousins. Phyllis, one of my dad’s other cousins who still lives in Creighton, had business in Norfolk, NE that day so she was not able to join us. I learned that Mary Ann, another of my dad’s cousins with whom I had corresponded had passed away a couple of years ago.

Flora Jean knew our great-grandparents, John and Mary Huigens. She remembers them as very kind and warm people. I shared some of the documents and pictures I had brought about John and Mary’s life near Henry, IL and that of their parents. They told us how to find John and Mary’s old house in Creighton, but did not know where the farm was located. I had been unable to get the 1903 Knox County plat map I have to match up with Google maps and was counting on someone there being able to direct me. Pat and her husband own an appliance repair business and have a current plat map, so she took a copy of the old map with her to figure out who lives there now. Flora Jean also gave me a wonderful photocopy of a pair of large photos of John and Mary.

After we said good-by to Pat and Flora Jean, we drove by John and Mary's house. 

Julie knows the location of the house of our other great-grandparents, Frank and Margaret (Kennedy) Kain, but she couldn't figure out a good way to explain how to find it. She didn't know the address, just how to find it if she needed to.

Our next stop was St. Ludger's Cemetery. My brother and mother had been to Creighton three years ago and had sent me lots of photos of grave markers, but it was nice to be able to visit in person and pay my respects. My brother said it was strange seeing our rare name all over on tombstones. It did seem like every few feet Anne Marie and I were finding another Huigens grave marker. Not to mention Tharnishes and Matterns. We found the graves of both sets of great-grandparents who are buried there and that of a great-great-grandmother, Mary's mother.

Although we didn't find the Kain's house in town, I had, been able to find their farm in the 1903 plat map and had succeeded in locating it’s location on Google maps. We drove by the farm and I collected a small sample of dirt from it on our way out of town after visiting the cemetery. It felt good to be at the site where my Grandma Julia had been born. 

As we headed north to South Dakota, we passed through the little town of Bazille Mills, which my grandmother claimed as her birthplace.

Later that evening, we crossed over the Missouri River into South Dakota, land of my birth. OK, so I was born hundreds of miles from where we were, but still. We spent the night in Vermillion, home of the University of South Dakota, where several of my high school classmates had attended college. We stayed across from the street from the Dakota Dome, the schools stadium. I had been to USD a couple of times with the high school French Club to attend plays in French by Moliere and Ionesco. I probably also played there with the high school marching band. That was so long ago, I don’t remember everywhere that we played.

(to be continued)

SNGF: Two Degrees of Separation

1) Using your ancestral lines, how far back in time can you go with two degrees of separation? That means "you knew an ancestor, who knew another ancestor." When was that second ancestor born?

All of my great-grandparents had died before I was born. So the middle person will have to be one of my grandparents. Here are the earliest born ancestors that each of my grandparents may have known.

Joseph Andrew Huigens (1891-1957) had to have known his grandmother, Anna Helena (Schmitt) Fitzler (1833-1904). They both lived near Creighton, NE according to the 1900 US Census. He would have been 13 when she died. It's possible he also met his other grandmother, Katherine (Toemmes) Huigens Wend (1827-1899). She died in 1899, when he was eight. In 1895 she was living in Iowa with her daughter's family. She died four years later in a mental hospital in Illinois.

Mary Julia (Kain) Huigens (1894-1979) only had one grandparent who did not die before she was born, her maternal grandfather, John Kennedy (1826-1913). She would have been 19 when he died. I have no idea if she ever made the trip to Clinton, IA to meet him, if he ever came out west to Nebraska or if they met somewhere in the middle in Iowa for a family gathering at her aunt's.

Emery Julius Huigens (1896-1984) probably knew all of his grandparents. He was 14 when the first of them died. They all lived near each other in south-eastern South Dakota. His paternal grandfather, James Robert Ogden (1836-1910), was the oldest and the first to die. Emery would have been 14 then. It's also possible but unlikely that he met his great-grandfather, John Jacob Adlebusch (1817-1901). He lived in Sheboygan Co., WI and was almost 80 when my grandfather was born. I doubt that my grandfather was taken to Wisconsin or that my great-great-great-grandfather made the trip to SD at his age.

Esther Louise (Johnson) Ogden (1902-1984) probably knew all three of her grandparents who were alive when she was born. The oldest of them was Harriet Alice (Howard) Strayer (1829-1914). They all lived in the Quad City area in Iowa and Illinois where my grandmother was born.

So I'm pretty sure the farthest back I can go is Esther Louise Johnson to her maternal grandmother, Harriet Alice Howard, born in 1829. There are two other definite possibilities in 1826 and 1827 with a very, very slim chance of 1817.

Thanks, Randy, for another great topic.

Mar. 2011, Weeks 1-4: Emery Julius OGDEN

Just under the wire (it is still March, at least for a few more hours), here is the information on my maternal grandfather that I planned to post on the four Sundays in March.

Week 1: Birth

Emery Julius OGDEN was born 9-Sept-1896 most likely in Union Co., SD. South Dakota did not start keeping birth records until 1905. According to a database of pre-1905 births that the SD Dept. of Health put together here, my grandfather was born in Union Co. I don’t know who provided that information to them or when. On his 1918 WWI draft registration form, Clay Co., SD is his place of birth. His 1929 marriage license lists Spink in Union Co., SD as his birthplace. On his children’s 1945 SD Census cards, someone listed Elk Point, Spink Co., SD as their father’s birthplace. However Elk Point is in Union Co., not Spink Co. In his obituary and on his funeral card, his birthplace is given as Elk Point, Union Co., SD.

His parents were William Frederick OGDEN and Mary Elizabeth HERREN. My grandfather was most likely born at home on his parent’s farm. Further research to pinpoint his birthplace will involve tracking down the location of the farm in 1896 using land records and any county directories that may exist. I can also try looking for a birth announcement in area newspapers.

Week 2: Marriage

Emery OGDEN married Esther Louise JOHNSON at the Morse Memorial Methodist church in Rushville, Sheridan Co., NE on 19-Mar-1929. My sources for that information are their obituaries and a Rushville newspaper clipping from 22-Mar-1929. I wish I had gotten their marriage records 30-40 years ago when my aunt was the County Clerk for Sheridan Co. She could have helped me locate so many records that I could use now.

Week 3: Death

My Grandpa Ogden died on 8-Apr-1984 in the Bennett County Memorial Hospital in Martin, SD. I don’t have the cause of death. He is buried in Fairview Cemetery, east of Rushville, NE. I have two obituaries for him, a funeral card and pictures of his grave marker from when I was last there in 1995. I still need to order the death certificate from the SD Dept. of Health, just to be thorough.

Week 4: Misc.

My grandfather was a merchant. He owned stores in Pine Ridge, SD and Martin, SD that I know of. I remember the clothing store in Martin. His son-in-law, my Uncle Dennis GREGG, took over and ran it after my grandfather retired. He also owned a garage in either Rushville or Gordon.

My grandfather was a roamer. He was born in south-eastern SD and lived in Union Co., Charles Mix Co., Tripp Co. Mellette Co., Todd Co., Shannon Co., Bennett Co. and Pennington Co., all in SD. He also lived in Sheridan Co., NE in both Rushville and Gordon at various times. I’m working on figuring out a timeline of where he was when. I need some input from my mother and to look into land records, county directories and newspapers. I’ve got point-in-time locations from US and SD censuses and other sources, but there are some discrepancies and I don’t know exactly when he moved between the various records.

According to the SD Census records, my grandfather graduated the 6th grade. The 1910 US Census states he had attended school sometime since 1-Sept-1909, when he was about to turn 14. That’s too old for 6th grade, so I think he may have gone beyond the 6th grade but didn’t make it all the way through 8th grade. He most likely went to public schools in Charles Mix Co., SD. I have no ideas what school records still exist from back then.

Emery OGDEN registered for the WWI draft on 5-Jun-1918. He enlisted in the US Army in Sept-1918. He served at Camp Funston in Kansas, the epicenter for the Spanish Flu epidemic. The first cases appeared there in March 1918 and by the time my grandfather arrived word had begun to leak out to the press of the huge number of flu-related deaths at the camp. It must have been a very frightening ordeal for my grandfather. He served as a cook. According to his obituaries, he was discharged in 1919. I’m still working on trying to piece together his service record.